The Voices is weird. Really weird, and violent, and even uncomfortable. The film features Ryan Reynolds as a mentally troubled guy who has a solid gig in a bathtub factory, and who finds himself acting out unconscious urges when he falls for a pretty girl at work. Those unconscious urges are often brought to the surface via pets owned by Reynolds’ character. See, the pets, a cat and a dog, talk to him, with the cat speaking in a rough Scottish brogue and the dog in a slow, gloppy and dopey drawl.

Marjane Satrapi, who directed Persepolis, made the film based on from a script by Michael R. Perry (Paranormal Activity 2). Now Lionsgate has bought US distribution rights, and will put the film in theaters later this year, hopefully without cuts.

There’s no trailer for The Voices at this point, and describing some of the ways the film gets weird would be to give away some stuff that should probably just bee seen in the movie. I will say that Reynolds is terrific in the role, as he strikes just the right point between two poles. On one side he’s endearingly and sympathetically naive and hopeful; on the other he is blankly deranged. If there’s a performance that will redeem Reynolds in the eyes of audiences that have written him off after films like Green Lantern, it should be this one.

This isn’t a movie that will make you feel good about anything, and I can understand anyone who rejects it based on the way it treats mental illness. The film’s comic moments — which are often very funny — are used both to defuse the growing tension about Reynolds’ condition, and to heighten it. Watching some of the comedy surrounded by the grim spectacle of violence isn’t always easy, but the blend does have a real effect. I won’t forget the movie, that’s for sure. [The Wrap]